As I reflect on the process of building a website, while keeping in mind that I am still in the process of building one (probably not the best time to have an unbiased reflection, but what can you do?), there are three ideas that stand taller than the rest.
The first is the idea of vision. I remember traveling to New York in college as part of a trip with my college music department (parents reading this, let your kids pursue their passions, they can places, literally!) and viewing the streets of New York in person. It put me in awe. I went up on the Empire State Building after midnight with a group of friends and we could see the skyline of the city bright against the night sky. I walked around Central Park with all its intersecting pathways and various attractions. I spent some time just standing in awe of the diverse style of buildings on any given street. What struck me about it all was that NONE of it existed just a couple centuries ago. Someone or some group of people had a vision in their heads and made it reality. Every window and ledge and terrace and rooftop. All of it came from someone’s imagination and was planned out and was executed. Every last brick had been deliberately placed. It blows my mind. The cities we live in and interact with are pure creation. I still cannot fathom it. I also feel this way about building a website. Every line of text, every icon, the layout of the page, and even the colors chosen were all done deliberately. Someone had a vision and made it a (virtual) reality. This is something I struggle with. I am an analytical person first and foremost. I like checklists and I like to know when I am done. Building a website is not like this at all, I have discovered. I look at the requirements for a particular page and I am instantly compelled to write paragraphs explaining and conveying the information required. Then I look at the sample websites or see cohort members sites during class and go “ooohhhhh.” Like the buildings of New York, it just does not come to me. I feel vision in other areas. I feel comfortable with words and with music. Lots of nonvisual areas really. When it comes to having a visual vision for my website, I struggle. I have to constantly remind myself of our learnings on the power of the visual and fight against the urge to overexplain. I very clearly understand now why web designers have jobs. A second idea, related to design, is the idea of content. After a vision is established for a page, then it comes time for content. That means either scavenging what you want or building it yourself. I have spent more hours than I would like to say so far gathering logos and icons from the various websites I want to talk about on my capstone. Then, I need to spend time editing them to be roughly the same size and shape because I can’t have a smorgasbord of icon sizes running rampant on my page. Hopefully, when that is all done, the resolution is still good. Otherwise, it is back to step one of finding the appropriate banner or logo. Or maybe I want an infographic for a topic. I need to go find one that is free or fair to use, make sure the size and resolution are acceptable and get it in there. Or create my own on whatever authority I can muster on a given subject. I finally have a vision for a page but then I need to scrounge up the necessary content to bring it life. Finally, I reflect on pragmatism. How important is it reaaaaalllyyyy that I have a green-themed growth mindset infographic? Do I really need to edit rounded icons for these five websites I want to promote? Am I losing sight of the purpose of my capstone, the Master’s content, as I fret over finding the perfect fair use banner for the page? I spent nearly twenty minutes editing a picture of a yellow brick road to decorate my Common Core page and then my internet gave out. I lost my progress in Weebly and realized I could have downloaded seven or eight websites logos or linked another five pages or any number of things. I could have drafted text for the website in a Google doc that wouldn’t eat it or worked on my poster or worked on my video in offline software. I don’t say all this to sound negative but to recognize that pragmatism has a place in a project like this. I could reformat and rearrange icons and fonts all day trying to nail the perfect page look. The point of what I am doing is delivering certain content. Visual design plays a part in that and I need to keep my audience in mind. That’s why vision is important and that’s why finding/creating content to bring that vision to life is important, even if time consuming. However, it is also important to recognize the myth of the perfect website and keep one foot rooted in pragmatism as we approach the finish line.
4 Comments
james landis
12/4/2017 03:12:54 pm
Patrick,
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Nai Saelee
12/4/2017 04:51:19 pm
Patrick,
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Nancy
12/5/2017 05:47:50 pm
Patrick,
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12/6/2017 08:12:30 pm
I enjoyed your trip to the big apple and how it empowered you to feel like sharing to other about letting your children follow their passions. I've been having this same empowerment with our program and the idea of eportfolios. I enjoyed the ride of working on y website but time is needed to create one. good with your future...
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